A few months ago Trevor Hindle circulated a questionnaire to find out what types of training would appeal to the MDOC Membership.
I am pleased to advise you that award-winning mapper Rod Postlethwaite has offered to provide us with some mapping training. Rod lives in Telford and is a member of Wrekin.
Previously Rod has put on courses for people either with no experience at all or with some limited knowledge, and they have included basic surveying and how to use OCAD.
Course content would be tailored to our needs, so if everyone is a beginner then Rod can do a Beginner’s Course or if they have some knowledge / experience then it could be an Improver’s Course (whereby Rod will attempt to tell you whatever you want to know).
Duration is usually 1 day for Cartography and 1 day for Survey.
Numbers on any course will be limited to 6 people as that is the number of OCAD licences that we can make available.
Rod has advised that the lower the number the better from a teaching point of view as everyone learns at different speeds and has different abilities. The fewer participants the more personal attention he can give to problems encountered.
The venue (to be arranged) is likely to be in South Manchester perhaps with access to some terrain, which could be a local park, for the survey part.
As Rod is retired from full-time work most days are possible.
He could do a weekend (if there’s no orienteering) or 2 individual days.
In the coming years MDOC is likely to need:
- new urban maps
- updates to urban maps (because change is more rapid in the city)
- updates to classic (forest and park) maps - new classic maps are less likely
- updates and extensions to Night Street League maps
If you'd like to receive some mapping training, please drop me an email by 13 October.
Please identify:
- The specific skills you want to learn: e.g. forest/park or urban or NSL; surveying and/or mapping.
- Are you an OCAD Beginner or Intermediate?
- Are you a survey beginner or Intermediate?
- Is there alternative mapping software you would like to use in preference to OCAD?
- Is there any other aspect of mapping you would like to learn?
MDOC often has a need to update a local map, so having attended the course there is likely to be an opportunity to gain hands-on experience in that context, when further support could be supplied from existing mappers within the club.
[If you already have some OCAD skills and would be willing to support a new mapper please let me know. Thanks]
I will enquire about your availability and preferences for weekday/weekend once I've got an idea of demand and identified which dates Rod can make.
Regards, Ian
07768 978763
